


Ever After

by NortheasternWind



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Games), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amnesia, Gen, Haunting, K-KIND OF, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, bullet point fic, short form, technically canon compliant, this fic assumes most of celebrimbor's behavior was the result of the ring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind
Summary: Against all odds, one of the Black Riders survives the destruction of the Ring. He returns to a Middle-earth he does not remember, and must find his way without any knowledge or memory of himself.And every night, he alone can hear echoes of a familiar voice...
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Talion (Shadow of Mordor)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 100





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know that I'll ever extend this into a long-form fic, or indeed finish it: I need ideas and I'm out of them! Help! Until then though AO3 is still an archive, so I'll leave this here to be easily found and saved. Retitled because I realize that Bird already wrote a similar fic with the previous title LMAO.

Aragorn recognizes his armor. The garrison at the Black Gate fell long, long ago, but this one does not look like an old man. The eagles confirm what Aragorn suspects— that this man is a Nazgûl, recently freed from Sauron’s grasp, the only survivor among the Nine.

Aragorn’s heart aches for him. He gets to work at once.

The wraith is so tired. He longs to meet his family again, to finally rest— but the scent of athelas and the voice of his king call to him, and like the dutiful Ranger he is he rises to meet them.

He does not remember his own name.

He does, however, recognize his king immediately.

(There is a peal of phantom laughter as he says his first words upon awakening— _my king_ — as though he had some companion who ought to have expected this. But the nameless ringwraith is alone.)

The white stone of Minas Tirith claws at his heart. He has been here before; he has walked the streets below, breathed this air, known joy and love here. He has returned, though he has no memory of ever being here before, and the result is something that feels rather like a dream.

The king visits often. The wraith is humbled by his concern.

Some nights he awakens with a cry— dreaming of ash and blood and spiders crawling over his face, clawing at his throat, choking, choking… Faramir and Éowyn are an immeasurable comfort on those nights, those who know best what he has gone through though he can speak of it not.

…At least until Sam and Frodo awaken.

The ringbearers remember each other the moment their gazes meet. Frodo’s eyes widen— he has seen that face, those eyes, on Weathertop—

The wraith weeps and begs forgiveness. Frodo is still recovering himself, but still he does not hesitate.

“I understand,” he says, and they remain friends from that moment on.

Some nights he can hear singing. He does not know the words— they are in some elvish tongue he has never heard before, or thinks he’s never heard, but the voice…

He’s not sure how he feels about that voice. It brings him even more comfort than his king, than Faramir and Éowyn, than the Ringbearer— but it also makes his chest ache, brings tears to his eyes.

_I pitied you._

_I thought you were a good person._

_I thought we were friends._

_I still pity you._

_Why?_

He weeps bitterly those nights. He doesn’t even know why.

One night he awakens with a start to find a stranger standing over him.

She is elven-fair, with a hood, and two false fingers of golden light, and a ring…

A ring…

“Talion,” she sobs, and bends down to wrap him in an embrace and weep.

(Isildur’s ring dissolves at the same moment that Celebrimbor is freed from Sauron’s grasp. Sauron’s hold on Celebrimbor’s mind, on the other hand, does not loosen immediately, but Celebrimbor is nothing if not sharp; if Sauron is gone, then somewhere the last of the Nine has only minutes to live, and if Celebrimbor ever wishes to (use? see? speak to?) him again he must act quickly.

The ritual performed upon the Black Gate 60 years ago guides him. Celebrimbor reaches Talion just in time.)

Talion remembers nothing. He does not know if the memory no longer exists, if Sauron erased it or merely locked it away, or if his own mind simply refuses to know that pain again. But Eltariel seems familiar, and the sight of the ring upon her finger is—

He doesn’t know. There are many feelings he no longer has names for. But he believes her.

At least he now has a name.

“It’s over,” he tells her.

They do not speak. She simply sits with him, watches over his sleep, and is gone again when he wakes in the morning.

“My name is Talion,” he tells Éowyn and Faramir that day.

He cannot bear to tell them that he has remembered nothing, that this is no sign of his eventual recovery, but somehow he thinks they know.

Eltariel visits every night, even when he is too tired to speak with her. She fidgets with the ring upon her finger. It’s almost as though she’s waiting for him to fall asleep.

(He appreciates her company. But the voice doesn’t sing when she is near.)

She is quick and cunning, but in a city with so many people it is only a matter of time before she’s caught.

It’s too bad Legolas enjoys entering through the windows, honestly.

Eltariel has no choice but to introduce herself then. She is a Blade of Galadriel, charged with keeping the Nazgûl at bay within Mordor by the Lady of Lorien.

(she hides her ring. no one is fooled.)

“It was me,” she whispers. “It was I who abandoned him, I who gave him over to the Dark Lord, I who placed that cursed ring upon his finger and sealed his fate.”

“My fate is my own,” Talion responds unthinkingly.

Because he knows this: though he would never have chosen this terrible darkness, this gnawing emptiness, this wretched servitude, this pain, it was he who chose to don the ring.

“You were nothing like the others,” Eltariel says. “You alone of the Nine were pure of heart— you alone made your deal knowingly, wore your ring not because you craved power but because you didn’t.

“You held Sauron within Mordor for decades, alone. You have lasted longer than any other. All of Middle-earth owes you its thanks.

“And I am sorry,” she goes on, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I should have refused. I should have never, never…”

She is too ashamed to go on. The Fellowship and their friends let her be.

“You have served Middle-earth faithfully, though it has done nothing for you,” the king tells him quietly.

(Talion can neither deny or confirm it, but Aragorn knows: the records tell of Captain Talion of the Black Gate, and the ill turn Minas Tirith took to place him there.)

“I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you why any more than you could, my liege.”

“Same reasons anyone fights the darkness,” the king says simply. “And I thank you.”

He thinks he can hear crying that night. But the others are deaf to it, and when he calls out the strange voice silences itself.

(If he could Celebrimbor would weep at the irony. Their positions are reversed: Talion has no memory of him, or himself, and can no more forgive Celebrimbor than he can recognize him. He despairs a time, believing Talion to be lost to him forever.

This shall be his punishment, he decides.)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE HELP ME I WANT MY BOYS TO BE HAPPY OR AT LEAST CONTENT.
> 
> also in this house we love and cherish the line of feanor. no i do not accept criticism
> 
> thanks for reading :)


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